


Losing

by natalunasans



Series: space for all [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Abuse, Bullying, Canon Temporary Character Death, Canonical Child Abuse, Death Wish, Dubious Ethics, Dubious Science, Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children, Gen, Immortality, Loss, Mental Health Issues, Mindwiping, POV The Master (Doctor Who), Poetry, Regeneration (Doctor Who), Spoilers for Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:53:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24326074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natalunasans/pseuds/natalunasans
Summary: it's about the Timeless Children, and some fan theories are included.this is way more canon-compliant than my fic-verse (although not entirely), or i guess this is reaction to canon instead of fixit of canon? so for example the emphasis is the same as the dr/m interactions in the episode, rather than having interaction of M with Ruth!Dr on gallifrey as i would (will?) have in my fic
Relationships: The Doctor & The Master (Doctor Who), The Doctor | Theta Sigma & The Master | Koschei (Doctor Who: Academy Era), Thirteenth Doctor & The Master (Dhawan)
Series: space for all [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1600504
Comments: 10
Kudos: 14





	Losing

**Author's Note:**

> i have not been able to post anything during this whole quarantine thing because teaching online has been making me (happy but) mentally exhausted.  
> i want to go back to those 3 or so WiPs that i have ongoing, but my brain keeps noping out. so i cannot promise anything.
> 
> in the meantime here is this...

When two friends pushed and shoved each other  
As children do  
Selfishness is natural, after all

When his friend fell off the edge of the world

Before either understood what a cliff was  
They know now  
A cliff is where everything ends

Before she was the Doctor

Before she was even Theta Sigma

When his friend fell off the edge of the world

He was so scared

He shrieked and, still shrieking, ran away  
Across unlistening red grass

But he came skulking back to watch

He saw a mother’s grief

He saw a mother’s disbelieving joy

He saw a scientist’s curiosity   
Reborn with her mystery child

He saw his friend’s life energy  
Shine reflected in an explorer’s eyes

His friend was alive!

His friend was okay!

His friend was no longer his.

His best and only friend turned into someone else  
Someone new he’d never get to know

He didn’t know  
How many new people  
His friend would become

He didn’t know his friend was now  
A mystery  
An experiment

Their biodata (it wasn’t even called that yet)  
A new-claimed planet to be colonised

His friend now isolated in their mother’s home  
In their captor’s laboratory

Their isolation implied his own

The bullies knew, as bullies always know  
Each one’s vulnerability without the other

He did not know the parallels

So many things were done to him

Beaten down in body and in spirit  
All details lost  
All run together in passive voice

He did not know that their first memory wipe  
Lined up with his

He never knew when he was made like them

At school, now called Time Lords’ Academy 

She was a swot, again  
She didn’t know it wasn’t her first childhood  
Didn’t know these bullies weren’t the first

Her best and only friend, class clown  
Convinced her to skive off  
Run wild and free in the red grass  
Repeating, not remembering, the past

She read the ancient stories from Sol3

Learned their strange primitive tongues  
Latin, Greek, English, Russian … 

She named herself Koschei the Deathless

To tell her bullies they might win  
But she would never lose

A few lives later he renamed himself the Master

To tell them all that he’s the bully now

And they might win

But he would never lose control

And now he knows

The deathless one’s his friend

If he could be eternal too  
In life or death, it doesn’t really matter

Maybe they would be the same

Maybe his friend would return

His world would return

Wind time backwards 

Flip gracefully upwards onto the clifftop

Push a toy at him

And lead him, laughing strangely  
Running backwards through the red fields  
Towards both their innocence  
Back when they had a home

He brings her to stand again on a cliff  
Look out upon the ruins of their bullies

He tells her he’s destroyed her  
Hopes it isn’t possible

He dares her to destroy him  
Doesn’t say how tired he is  
He’s given her reason enough

Maybe now she understands  
A cliff is where everything ends

**Author's Note:**

> unintentionally but definitely influenced by https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47536/one-art which resonates with the master anyway  
> thanks @modernwizard for catching that!


End file.
